July 29/05 12:14 pm - Tour de Toona: Stage 4

Stage 4 of the International Tour de 'Toona ended in a bunch sprint after a hard chase spearheaded by the Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis brought back a dangerous break on the final climb of the day. Despite helping to reel in the break, Greg Henderson of Health Net Presented by Maxxis was still able to hang on for 3rd on the stage behind winner J.J. Haedo and Jonathan Page, both of Colavita/Sutter Home.

After a couple early attempts at a break failed, a five-man group containing Ben Jacques-Maynes (Kodak Gallery/Sierra Nevada), Matthew Crane (Snow Valley), Tim Johnson (Jittery Joe's/Kalahari) and Davide Frattini and Aaron Olson (both Colavita/Sutter Home) rolled off the front and was able to stretch out their lead on the peloton to around two minutes. With Olson, Johnson and Jacques-Maynes all within a minute of overnight race leader Chris Wherry (Health Net/Maxxis), the team had to work to protect Wherry's lead.

"It was a strong break," said Health Net Presented by Maxxis directeur sportif Jeff Corbett. "Maybe it had a bit too much horsepower to let go that much. They're five really strong guys. Instead of controlling the break with Mike (Sayers), Doug (Ollerenshaw), (Mike) Jones and (John) Lieswyn, we had to throw in Hendy, too, just to be safe."

Henderson, who came into the stage sitting 7th overall, was the team's top threat to win the mostly flat 4th stage. "We maybe could've saved Henderson for the sprint and let Justin (England) and Scott (Moninger) finish off the chase up the last hill, but that's just how it goes sometimes," Corbett said.

The 3rd-place time bonus was still enough to move Henderson up to 5th overall ahead of Philip Wong (Fiordifrutta). Ryan Trebon (Aerospace Engineering) had been sitting 6th overall but crashed out near the end of the stage. This moved Justin England up to 7th overall. Wherry remains in the top spot, 15 seconds ahead of Andy Bajadali (RMCEF), while Moninger remains in third place at 20 seconds.

Friday's stage is another one for the sprinters. Saturday's difficult circuit race should determine the final overall classification, as the finale on Sunday is a criterium. With the top 25 riders on GC separated by barely more than a minute, the race for the overall is still wide open.